Why We Stopped Buying Service Vans — And You Should Too

Summary

Podcast Summary: “Why We Stopped Buying Service Vans — And You Should Too”

Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast
Hosts: John Wilson & Jack Carr
Air Date: February 12, 2026

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Episode Overview

John Wilson and Jack Carr delve deep into their evolving philosophy about service vehicles for home service businesses. Challenging the longstanding industry norm of using high-roof vans and box trucks, they reveal why their companies have stopped buying these expensive vehicles in favor of more affordable, fuel-efficient pickups—specifically the Ford Maverick. The conversation unpacks the practical, economic, and operational reasons driving this shift, discusses implementation details, and considers potential roadblocks—offering actionable advice for other owners ready to rethink their fleets.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Case Against High-Cost Service Vans

• Rising Costs:
  • Vans now routinely cost $55,000–$65,000 each (00:00, 03:02, 21:01).
  • "Why am I sending this guy in this $60,000 truck when a $27,000 truck will get better fuel economy and be cheaper?" — John (00:10).
• Capital Efficiency:
  • High van prices drag down the business's balance sheet and cash flow (24:51).
  • Both hosts now question the logic of investing so heavily in depreciating assets.

2. The Shift to Pickups—Especially Ford Mavericks

• Affordability & Availability:
  • Mavericks cost $26,000–$27,000 (00:00, 05:00, 09:55).
  • John and Jack buy leftover fleet vehicles for added savings (05:00).
• Fleet Transition:
  • John: “Half our fleet is pickup now... it has been huge. I don’t think we bought a van for three years now.” (03:02)
  • Jack outlines the setup: “White Maverick... with a DCU cover... sometimes hybrid, sometimes not... outfitted with Milwaukee Packouts instead of expensive drawer systems.” (05:00–07:31)

3. Inventory Management & Reduced Carrying Costs

• Smaller Vehicles, Lean Inventory:
  • Pickups mean you can’t haul $30,000 of assorted inventory. Forces teams to be purposeful and standardized in stocking (08:14, 08:32).
  • "You have to be meaningful and thoughtful about what inventory you have on stock." — Jack (08:33)
• Storage Solutions:
  • Shift from expensive custom drawer systems (Rat Pack) to cost-effective Milwaukee Packout solutions for tool and materials management (07:31).

4. Real-World Performance in Challenging Conditions

• Winter Reliability:
  • The recent Nashville “Snowmageddon” saw zero Mavericks get stuck, while high-top vans did (02:01).
  • “Our vans got stuck all the time... our Mavericks didn’t get stuck once during the ice storm.” — Jack (02:17)
• Operational Uptime:
  • No loss of productivity or inventory issues in poor weather (09:35).

5. Installations & The “Trailer Packout” Concept

• Problem: Lack of cargo space in Mavericks for large installs (11:04).
• Solution:
  • Attach 6x10 enclosed trailers to Mavericks for HVAC installs and water heaters.
  • Trailers are outfitted with all parts for specialty jobs. They can be “swapped out” for jobs, maximizing efficiency and reducing labor.
  • “Once that one's done, at the end of the day you pull [the trailer] back in and they go and grab the next trailer.” — Jack (12:21)
• Economics & Flexibility:
  • $2,500 to outfit a trailer vs. $60,000 for a van; trailers last decades (13:00–14:00).

6. Considerations & Limitations

• Driving With Trailers:
  • Requires more skill; may increase minor accidents, but hosts see this as minor compared to van costs (13:01, 15:20).
• Excavation Equipment:
  • Mavericks' towing limits mean heavy-duty trucks are still needed for large equipment (17:11–18:01).

7. Cost Savings and Data

• Notable Fuel Savings:
  • John: "In 2024, we spent $456,000 on gas, and in 2025, we spent 298." — a $157,000 annual difference (18:29).
• Vehicle Financing:
  • High van financing rates ($1,200/month vs. $560–$590 for pickups) make vans less attractive (25:01).

8. Stocking & Service Scope

• Right-Size Inventory:
  • Standard “$2,000 truck stock” for HVAC service trucks, adjusting seasonally (22:21–22:43).
  • Plumbing and electrical jobs also well-suited for pickups, with trailers resolving most remaining size/weight issues (23:37–24:10).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Maverick Superiority:

  • “We didn’t have a single Maverick stuck. Our vans got stuck all the time...” — Jack (02:17)
  • “It is the most cash-efficient decision that you can make.” — John (10:09)
  • “For me, the economics just don’t work [for vans]. I love them man. I love [pickups] so much.” — Jack (25:20)

• On Inventory & Efficiency:

  • “You can’t store $30,000 in inventory. You have to be meaningful and thoughtful about what inventory you have on stock.” — Jack (08:14, 08:33)
  • “I just think it’s a bad capital decision. I think it’s a bad use of cash... It’s a drag on my balance sheet.” — John (24:51)

• On Changing Industry Norms:

  • “You basically have to switch to them as much as you can and have the fewest amount of vans in fleet as possible. Because I, I don't think it helps anybody. It only drags the business down.” — John (25:58)

• On Industry Resistance:

  • “There’s probably some big names out there that would completely disagree with me and you here. I mean, I don’t, not to throw him under the bus, but like Hoffman runs massive vans and I just don’t understand the economics behind it.” — Jack (26:11)

• Their Bottom Line:

  • “Comment below why I’m wrong or why you are now going to buy all Mavericks and then we can have massive fleets of all Mavericks.” — Jack (27:50)
  • “I’m like cheap, cheap trucks, cheap trucks. Hey John, you want to spend less on trucks? Yeah, I do.” — John (27:45)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00–02:01: Opening, why van costs are out of control
• 02:01–03:02: Real-world reliability—Snowmageddon, Mavericks vs. vans
• 05:00–07:31: Fleet purchase tactics, outfitting Mavericks
• 08:14–09:35: Inventory management and right-sizing
• 11:04–14:00: Trailer packout system for large installs
• 18:29–19:01: Fuel savings breakdown
• 21:01–22:43: Truck stock best practices and seasonal adjustments
• 24:51–25:20: Financial logic: financing and capital allocation
• 25:58–27:57: Industry reflections, challenge to convention, closing remarks

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Tone & Language

The hosts’ tone is direct, practical, and sometimes irreverently candid. Jokes and candid confessions (“I’m bald and short... so I over-deliver,” “I’m like cheap, cheap trucks”) keep the discussion lively and relatable, while the business rationale is always front-and-center. Both John and Jack stress the importance of prudent cash management, balancing innovation with real-world operational wisdom, and maintaining a playful but challenging attitude toward industry dogma.

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If you’re a home service operator questioning your next fleet purchase, this episode delivers a convinced, data-backed case to rethink the status quo—complete with system blueprints, cost breakdowns, and a healthy dose of irreverence for “how it’s always been done.”

Transcript

[A]

The vans are just too much money. It's like 55 to $65,000. You can go get a Maverick for like 26, $27,000.

[B]

I love Mavericks.

[A]

Why am I sending this guy in this $60,000 truck when a $27,000 truck will get better fuel economy and be cheaper?

[B]

A big portion of that is reduced inventory. Like, you can't store $30,000 in inventory. Like, you have to be meaningful and thoughtful about what inventory you have on stock.

[A]

All right, so full Mavericks, bunch of trailers. I kind of. I'm kind of into it.

[B]

I think that's my crazy hair burned idea.

[A]

Yeah. I think the only thing I don't like.

[B]

Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.

[A]

Welcome back to Owned and Operated. I am your host, John Wilson. On the show with me today, I have the infamous Jack Carr, the bald bearded man from Nashville. Then a local Nashville man. It doesn't roll off the tongue quite like local Florida man, but it's pretty good.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You'll know it's him if he's denser than he should be and wearing cowboy boots.

[B]

All of this is accurate and it doesn't offend me whatsoever. Good, good. I've said it a long time ago on many occasions is I'm bald.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I'm short. And so, like, I gotta work hard, man. That's what it's about.

[A]

You got. You gotta over deliver.

[B]

You gotta. I gotta over. I have to overcome my shortcomings. So I make super. I'm super pumped about today's topic. I'm leading into this.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah, me too. All right, let's do it.

[B]

So I got a hairbrained idea.

[A]

I'm ready.

[B]

Okay. So everybody knows, or at least everybody who's on Twitter. So. Not everybody. Probably not even half of our audience. I love Mavericks. The Ford Maverick, specifically Ford Mavericks. Mavericks, not the political, are by far my favorite vehicle. So going to set the stage for you. We just had Snowmageddon here in Nashville.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Ice storm, trees down, like, everything screwed up. We didn't have one single Maverick get stuck this entire week of ice.

[A]

Actually, I don't think we did either. I don't think I thought about that.

[B]

So that's the first thing, is we didn't have a single Maverick stuck. Our vans got stuck all the time, like, regularly. Our two transit vans that we have get stuck in snow and ice just because they're the high top. And. Yeah, I don't. I don't know. But the Mavericks know. And so we are working through, trying to come up with A way to do more with the Mavericks. So I, I just think that they are the, one of the most perfect vehicles for essentially almost all H vac, plumbing and electrical. And so what I'm, I'm working through is how to come up with a way that I never have to buy another high top Ford again.

[A]

Oh yeah, I'm so here for this. I mean so we, we started doing Mavericks, we started doing pickups I think two years ago. I want to say half our fleet is pickup now. And so we, the vans are just too much money. Like we're buying these high roof vans and it's like 55 to $65,000 but you can go get a Maverick for like 26, $27,000. So we started switching over purely for cost. We're like, oh why am I, why am I sending this guy in this sixty thousand dollar truck when a $27,000 truck will get better fuel economy and be cheaper. So yeah, we switched at the tail end of COVID and it has been huge. I don't think we bought a, a van for three years now. If you are a home service business spending 10, 20 or even 30 grand a month on marketing and you still can't confidently say where book jobs are actually coming from, then you need to hear this. Service Killers is hosting an in person workshop called Booked Solid where a small group of operators get in a room and work through the stuff. Nobody ever has time to slow down and do what. Can I actually track what's working that I should double down on, what's not working that I should kill? And how do I consistently fill the call board without wasting money? Sam and his team go deep on Google Ads, lsa, SEO, Facebook and even traditional marketing. But the big thing is lead handling and follow up which is where revenue quietly leaks. You'll leave with a real actionable 90 day marketing plan and so much more. It's hosted by Sam and his team at service scalers, happening March 3rd through the 5th in Akan, Ohio at Wilson. You can save 500 bucks with code booked early bird, but it's a small room so seats are limited. If marketing has been sitting on your to do list for way too long, then this is probably the nudge that you need.

[B]

Yeah, we haven't bought a van for the last three years and so our setup, because I get asked this a lot specifically is we go with a white Maverick we usually try to get the year before. So what happens is like a lot of these larger groups, pest control, pool routes, whatever they're buying 40 of these at a time or 30 of these at a time. And they don't necessarily act, so they order 30, I should say. But they only buy 28. And so we pick up the last two that have been sitting on some lot in, in kind of some off area of Tennessee. And our guy at Ford knows that's what we're looking for. So we get a 20, 24 white Ford Maverick. I. I don't really have a preference on eco versus or hybrid versus non hybrid. We have a mix in the fleet. Some people do have preference just because like there's some known issues with the hybrid models. They're a little bit more difficult to work on because they're a hybrid. Right. That being said, overall, we haven't had too many issues in general with them. We've had one recall, but we get that then about 26, 27 we have the DCU cover by are, which is like the three door.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What do you call this? Toppers with the roof rack already built in.

[A]

I think, I think that's what we're missing because that gives you the ability to put like a full water heater in there. And we're using the Tono covers, which you just can't put as much.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

But we also, we had to do that during COVID because it used to take 30 weeks to get the thing that you have. Because I think we have eight or nine of those and like we just literally couldn't.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So we ended up with Tanos and then we ended up sticking with them.

[B]

But those are nice though because like that's where we can put, we put the tubes that you put your, your other pipes in and then we put a ladder, like little giant ladder on it. And like that's what sits on the top of the rack. Any kind of, you know, any kind of material that's oversized we get. But, but overall what. The only thing we're changing, which we, we're, you know, as we're kind of learning our systems is we were doing the rat packs which are just like pull out drawers inside the bottom of that. That and I don't know the, the size, whatever the bed size is like 5x4 or whatever, but we're actually moving away from those. So I don't want to say that that's what we're using, but most of them do have that because those are about a thousand bucks. And we can buy three Milwaukee Packouts, like brand Milwaukee Packouts for that same cost.

[A]

Well, I just found out that Milwaukee Packouts have a Full like truck stock system. So we bought a business at the end. Yeah.

[B]

What does that, like, look like?

[A]

Dude, I don't even freaking know. Like, it was the packouts, but there's a way that you can hang them on the wall of a van.

[B]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, I've seen that.

[A]

I didn't know that. Oh, I, I have never seen that. So we, we. Yeah, we bought this business and they have six plumbing vehicles and all of them have Milwaukee pack out. Like, it was freaking awesome. Yeah.

[B]

That's the reason it was a plumbing business in itself. It's that you got six Milwaukee.

[A]

Oh, yeah. I was like, oh, this, this alone, you know, you've got me.

[B]

But yeah, so that's what we started doing. So our, our, our fleet.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because like, the idea behind it. Right. Is. And we've talked about this a lot, so I'm not going to beat the dead horse here, but like the idea behind going to Mavericks, a big portion of that is reduced inventory. Like, you can't store $30,000 in inventory, which is a catch 22.

[A]

You can't hide.

[B]

But realistically, I don't even feel like It's a catch 22. Like you just can't hide multiple motors and multiple things from 10 years ago. Six or seven drums of like 407C and some random R, you know, 132 for this one job you had 10 years ago. Like, you have to be meaningful and thoughtful about what inventory you have on stock. But so we're able to do a couple pack outs now instead of the Rat Pack. And then our only rule is like, hey, you keep your tools inside the truck. Like all the nice tools, like the, the pump down system, the recovery machine, your, your gauge set, like all that kind of stuff. Just keep that in the truck. And then in the back is where you keep, you know, roll of copper and any kind of tank. We have a little tank strap that we do to the back wall for our 410A.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And R32. And like, it is perfect. We. We had the ice storm. Nobody got stuck. We were able to run a ton of calls.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We had very little issues with inventory or like crashes. No problem. And we're getting into this. We're all in for like 33 per. Per truck. So that's, that's not the harebrain idea. So that's just setting the stage. Because everybody asks. I love it. I think it's the best thing ever.

[A]

I, I think we're in the, we're in the 20s with it. Like we brought on 20 last year, five or something the year before. We have a ton of rangers, we have a ton of Tacomas, but we ended up with Mavericks because they're so much cheaper.

[B]

Also great gas mileage.

[A]

I definitely think it's just like the right decision, to be honest. It is the most like cash efficient decision that you can make.

[B]

Yeah, I mean we started.

[A]

It's half the price.

[B]

Yeah, we started just for like our salespeople who are running around in, in like F150s. Yeah. And F150. So we actually like.

[A]

Yeah, it's crazy. Well, we, we ended up doing the Chevy Trailblazers for salespeople. And those are like $17,000 brand new.

[B]

That's pretty good too.

[A]

So that's great to look into that.

[B]

One you're gonna buy Mavericks.

[A]

Hello. So yeah, first for salespeople, we started putting them in. I mean it, it's still an SUV, but yeah, it was 17 grand. Yeah, I mean with tax it was maybe like 20.

[B]

And. And so the hair brain idea, John.

[A]

Is yeah, I'm ready.

[B]

We want to move away from vans and trucks altog or vans and box trucks altogether.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so the way that we are thinking about doing this, right.

[A]

And I think the big, the big pushback is going to be install the big pushback. How do we do this?

[B]

Because you, you admittedly like you cannot fit anything else in the back of the truck. There's no like you maybe get a evap coil. Like there's nothing that can go back there that's over a certain size. They're able to, to carry water heater around because we have custom fab racks that sit on the back of the tailgate. But outside of that like you cannot carry an H vac unit. And we have to do 5 ton package units here in Nashville. So the, what we're thinking is the Mavericks can tow up to 4, 400 pounds, which is about, I mean you can get a pretty big trailer for 4400.

[A]

That's two other Mavericks, one Maverick and.

[B]

Tow two other Mavericks. And so what we're thinking is like what if we created a system and we're working on it right now. It's. And the system is instead of Milwaukee packouts, for our installs, we're doing trailer packouts where you have an extra two thousand dollar enclosed trailer. A six by ten enclosed trailer that can fit not only fit a package unit, but sits lower and has the drop down gate. So they're not actually lifting anything up and over. It is full roll in Roll out and yeah, for 2, 2500 bucks in outfitting on a brand new enclosed trailer, 6 by 10 trailer, it can haul that plus a 5 ton gas package unit which is only 6, 5, 600 pounds more. Still be underweight. And then you could outfit that thing with all the gas fittings and everything you need. And then once that one's done, at the end of the day you pull it back in and they go and grab the next trailer. So it's really just disconnecting trailer, hooking up, new trailer. And that's your pack out. So that's my crazy hair burned idea. Okay, what do you think?

[A]

Where?

[B]

Am I missing something?

[A]

I think, yeah. I think the only thing I don't like is driving with trailers is a skill and some idiot's gonna jackknife that thing. So I don't love that. You'll probably have more accidents, so you'll have to noodle on that. Maybe like one extra year. I don't know. What I, what I like a lot is it's the same reason I like box trucks. Like you can just change the box but keep the chassis. So all the investment into the box, like into the trailer, like you can. A trailer can last like 30 freaking years. Like it doesn't matter. So that's kind of nice, is useful. Life is a long time. So I think I like that a lot. We, we've talked about doing this before. We talked about it. Well, we have one for excavation, but we've talked about doing this for boilers, I think, and maybe generators. Like there being like a trailer that goes and handles generators, but we obviously have not done it. I talk to a lot of home service business owners and if you are anything like the many shops that I know, you're getting flooded with AI pitches right now, most of them sound great, but then they fall apart the second they hit the real world. The one that I've kept coming back to is Avoca. What impressed me is they actually get how contracting businesses run. And it's not just some AI answering service. Avoca is going to handle inbound calls, outbound follow ups, texts, web leads, dispatching, and Even coaching your CSRs inside of one system that's built for growing home service companies. And if you're on service titan, this matters. Their integrations go deep. So you're not duct taping five tools together and hoping nothing breaks during your busy season. I also like that they're honest about what AI should and shouldn't do. When a call needs a human, they have a 247 live transfer built in. No drop balls, no awkward customer experience. Owners using Avoca are seeing hold times basically disappear and booking rates jump, sometimes by more than 30%. And that is real revenue, not just a vanity metric. If you're looking for the one AI partner that actually helps you book more jobs with without creating more chaos, this is worth taking a look. Book a demo at the link below.

[B]

Yeah, and so the way I try to look at that, right. So when you're talking about accidents, you're really talking about like he backed into something or he jack knifed something. And the way I look at that is the damage or took a corner too sharp, the damage that you generate from one of those accidents. Is it $30,000 equivalency to paying for a van. And not to mention like they also screw up those vans in the same exact way by jack, not jackknifing it, but like taking a turn to tight in a gas station. And now your, your nice white van has a yellow stripe across the side. So like I don't think that, that it's equivalent to 1 to 0. It's like 1.2.3.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so that 0.7 of risk, how much is that worth? But that's what, that's the way we're moving is we're going to move full.

[A]

So you'd have three. Three or like two or something.

[B]

Three. We're thinking about three enclosed trailers. The only downside, and we're gonna, we're gonna do the same for water heaters. It's like, hey, this is our water heater pack out van or pack out trailer.

[A]

Well, I feel like you could almost do that in the same because I mean H vac guys can put in.

[B]

A water heater either way. Yeah. I mean I think that it has gas fittings. It has a, like an H vac packout is very similar to a water heater packout. Right. There's not all the tools are in the back of the truck anyway. So it's not really. Again, it's not the trailer is just the equipment. And like the equipment installation which is gas pipe whip.

[A]

How big is the trailer?

[B]

Six by ten.

[A]

That's not bad.

[B]

It's not bad at all. Single axle and you could, you could.

[A]

Honestly probably pull that with something like a trailblazer. You might not even need them.

[B]

I like to pull that. I like it that it runs kind of like a billboard. So it runs like a box truck still.

[A]

Right.

[B]

In the sense of when you wrap it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then the only thing That I am discouraged on is there's. I'm 100 sure that there's no way that we can pull excavation equipment with a Maverick. So the. The.

[A]

No, not with the trailer you have. I mean, that's a big trailer.

[B]

Well, I just mean, like, in general, like, that. That. That excavation needs, like, an F250 minimal to pull that thing. So, I mean, we.

[A]

We have a. We have a 350 pulling ours, but that was a. You know, the first time we bought a excavation like dump, it was a 750. That thing was humongous, and it was like 125 grand. And then we downgraded to a 350. And that. I mean, that thing's been great. It's like. It's a big truck that happens to have a dump back. It. It's good. Like, I. We'll probably get another one.

[B]

Yeah. And so that. That's my only downside. But again, it's really for excavation only. We already have the. The truck, so we're not getting rid of that one. And for the most part, so full.

[A]

Mavericks bunch of trailers. I kind. I'm kind of into it. I. I think I'm into it.

[B]

Full Mavericks bunch of trailers. Like, our Mavericks already have, like, a lot of them already have, like, 50,000 miles on it. But we saw. We also saw meaningful change to our gas. Like, the amount of gas.

[A]

Oh, yeah, our gas is down.

[B]

Our gas is down, too.

[A]

Now, I think. I think that. I think that gas prices changed. I'd have to look, but in 2024, we spent $456,000 on gas, and in 2025, we spent 298.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So like, $157,000 of a difference. Like, it was enough that I remember the numbers because I was like, what the hell happened to this line item?

[B]

Yeah. So we're about the same. So I think it was a bit of. Yeah, gas pric. Also, there's some level of drop we controlled.

[A]

It's. It's one of the few things you can do to control gas prices.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I drove. So I. I had to run some calls this last week because of Snowmageddon. And. Yeah, man, I was going some distance. I drove for, like, three or four days without having to fill that thing up. And I'm talking about, like, a hundred miles a day. Like, it was wild. And then when I filled it up, 30 bucks. I'm blown away, man. So Maverick's a big fan.

[A]

Well, I'm. I'm trying to convince Brandon to Do the same. He's like, dude, we can't. But I've slowly. We've actually been able to pull it off because I've told him, I'm like, so the way I'm gonna get you onto this is I'm just not gonna buy any more vans. Like, we're not. So you just, so we've, you just, you're gonna, we're like forcing him in.

[B]

You're just gonna wait till I have a, A install trailer rolling around and then I'm gonna take some pictures and then you're gonna finally pull the trigger. Yeah, Brandon will be okay with it.

[A]

It's gonna be, it's going to be great. But yeah, so we've, we started moving like primarily pickup a couple years ago and yeah, I don't think we've maybe bought one van in the past three years that wasn't like a cheap pickup because like I don't want to pay 50 freaking thousand dollars. Yeah. I think my other solution, and this is something that I, I think is kind of funny. So like when we first started off in the business, we were buying used vans and like the only measurement for I'm going to buy this van is was it below 20 grand. And like we moved in 2019 to Enterprise and we've been doing that whole shindig and now we're like trying to figure out vans again. And I'm like, I don't want to keep paying $60,000 for a vehicle. Like, I just think that sucks. I think that, you know, when I started off in Enterprise, like the Chevy vans were like 30 grand. It was 20, 20, 19, 2020. Like it didn't double yet. So. Yeah, so, so I started calling some friends and I mean I talked to people running $100 million businesses and they're buying twenty thousand dollar used vans. Like so it, it would, it was just, it was like, man, okay, maybe we should have just been doing that the whole time. Because I think it is, it's such a drag to the business going and buying these. Like, it's just a bad balance sheet decision. Like, hey, I'm gonna go buy a 60, 000 vehicle that's also worse on gas and probably more repairs. Yeah, I mean like, and I'm gonna lose more inventory in it. Like it's a, it is a bad business decision.

[B]

I think the only side to it that is a good business decision which I will give up is like the ability to repair anything on site. You do not have to put in any extra labor or time or material into something. But again especially in H Vac like plumbing is a little bit different just because I think that you can. You can actively have a better truck stock list to manage what is on a house. Right. Because like pipes all the same outdoor fittings. Like a hose bib.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Is going to be a hose bib no matter what brand it is. Like customers don't care. The problem comes into play is like once you start running into warranty and non warranty. OEM versus non OEM on Lennox versus Train versus Goodman. And like so how it's always blown my mind to me like how. How do people try to stock for all those contingencies when it just doesn't make sense to me. You're going to have to run to the factory anyway to get that warranty board or otherwise you're installing a non warranty thing on. On a warrantied system which then.

[A]

Yeah, I think we, we came up with like a two thousand dollar per truck per maverick H truck H Vac service system. And it was very like generic parts driven. So that's been good for us.

[B]

Let me ask you a question on that. Do you guys do. Is that for all year or do you guys do two separate ones?

[A]

I think it changes by the season.

[B]

Yeah. Because that's what we did. Because I was gonna say 2000 would be hard for all year. But we are about 2000 a season. So we. 2000 and cooling and about a little more in heating because we carry a couple different sets of inducers just in case. But like you can't. Again same thing with inducer motors is like all of them are very specific to the type of unit and the brand unit. There's really no OEM that fits all and it makes it, it makes it difficult. But like we. Whether you had a truck that was like a K K VEV or whatever they're called Topper. That was a hundred thousand dollar truck with a bunch of stuff in it. Like you still can't fix that problem and now you're spending the gas to get up to the warehouse and back where you know, at least in the Maverick you can do it fast. So yeah, it's a very interesting segment but in like plumbing again I think that you can truly have a better impact. And then electrical we're still.

[A]

And electrical is super easy. Like you can do install. The only issue is generators.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But you can get a lot done in a maverick in electrical.

[B]

I was just looking up though like a 22 kilowatt whole home generator is still only 600 pounds, like created 600 pounds with transfer switch. So that would still fit into the back of a. Yeah, you could do the trailer. Of a trailer.

[A]

So yeah, no, you could do a trailer for sure. Might even, might even be easier because then otherwise our like we have a truck that has a lift gate and we have to use the lift gate truck for generators because it's £600.

[B]

Yeah. So I mean being able to roll it out I think is a huge win. Yeah. Overall. So you're, you're on Team Maverick then?

[A]

Oh yeah. Fully as much as, as much as we can. Because it mainly just like I don't want to spend 50, 60 grand on a vehicle. Like I just won't for. Not, not even I don't want to. I'm not going to. So if I have to buy a van it's going to be used. So yeah, my motivation is if I'm buying a vehicle it's going to be under, under 30 grand. I'm back on that. I'd rather a brand new Maverick than a used van but I would take a used van but like I'm not going to spend more than 30 grand.

[B]

And is that based on like done with it? Is there a number that is associated with that? Like so for example we get like.

[A]

A. I just think it's a bad capital decision. Like I think like it's a drag on my balance sheet. I think it's a bad use of cash. Like I don't, I don't think it's like the right investment.

[B]

Yeah, that's how we looked at it was more so like we were at a 7% interest rate or give or change, give or take. And so that comes out to be like 590, $560 a month which is wild compared to like the numbers I was getting for a sixty thousand dollar van. Like just crazy.

[A]

Oh yeah, it's like twelve hundred bucks a month for me.

[B]

You can buy two. You can have two technicians running, driving. If a technician, each H vac technician is driving 40k a month in sales. Like you can drive 80k in month of sales. And if you say that even if there was an inefficiency in the van that caused the technician to sell less at 10%. Now we're running 36 per tech. So you're at 72000 for those two technicians running in those two trucks versus a van running 40 and then paying more to do so like just the economics for me just don't work. I love them man. I love so much.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, no, I, I, I think it's, I think it's like needed. I think you basically have to switch to them as much as you can and have the fewest amount of vans in fleet as possible. Because I, I don't think it helps anybody. It only drags the business down.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, we'll see. There's probably some big names out there that would completely disagree with me and you here. I mean, I don't, not to throw him under the bus, but like Hoffman, like Hoffman runs massive vans and I just don't understand the economics behind it.

[A]

Ask him.

[B]

Yeah, probably will.

[A]

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[B]

Tell comment below where I'm wrong because I'm still trying to figure out, I think this is one of those ones that I'm right.

[A]

I don't think you are, dude. I don't think you are.

[B]

Honestly John, it's rare too that we agree at this level, so. I love it, dude.

[A]

I'm like cheap, cheap trucks, cheap trucks. Hey John, you want to spend less on trucks? Yeah, I do.

[B]

Comment below why I'm wrong or why you are now going to buy all Mavericks and then we can have massive fleets of all Mavericks. Sweet.

[A]

Hell yeah.